Kristin

People living in more racially diverse neighborhoods are more likely to help strangers, because they are more like to identify with “all humans everywhere.”

What is capitalism, anyway? If it is “entrepreneurial capitalism,” where people create cool new things that enhance other people’s lives, that seems like a good thing. But if it’s monopolistic capitalism (a few big companies starve out the competition until they have a captive clientele) or predatory capitalism (where supposedly market exchanges are a bad deal for you, but you have little choice), maybe not so good.

This week, the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport released a study about racial and gender diversity in sports journalism. It was the sixth such study done since 2006, and as in previous versions, the numbers were not encouraging, and there was a call for improving ways to recruit and broaden the searches for candidates of color. If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because many sectors know and understand they have work to do in this area.

Aven

I’ve been terribly worried about microplastic pollution ever since I learned that it was a thing, especially since I love both oysters and technical clothing (and, you know, water). So I am relieved to learn that there have been a few innovations over the past couple years that seem to offer relatively easy and effective solutions, at least to the laundry source of the problem. Here’s one.

John

Democracy Now! has been covering the “red state revolts” by teachers and other public servants. One of their latest segments covered a fifth day of protests on May Day by Arizona teachers over $1 billion in cuts to education since the 2008 recession. Earlier segments have covered teacher strikes in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. In the latter state, schools only have enough funds to operate four days a week; and “the teachers don’t have enough money to teach for the fifth day, because they need second and third jobs.”

Along the same lines, the New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells ran this article on the nature of protests in the second year of Trump.

John Abbotts is a former Sightline research consultant who occasionally submits material for Weekend Reading and other posts.

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